


Mea Culpa

by EnglishLanguage



Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types
Genre: Alan is awesome, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exposition AU, Gen, Laundry, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, THIS close to being pure fluff, but then angst happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 11:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18872593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnglishLanguage/pseuds/EnglishLanguage
Summary: Alan and Tron (accidentally) start to communicate. This is long overdue.





	Mea Culpa

**Author's Note:**

> So I was trying to write fluff and shenanigans for Et Cetera, but this happened instead. I decided to post it separately.

Typically, Alan has to break into Sam’s house.

That is- he doesn’t have to _break in_ as the phrase is generally used. When Sam first moved into the place, he entrusted Alan with a set of keys to his house- a sort of pseudo-permission to enter, limited by the unspoken understanding between them (eloquently conveyed in a single glare, on Sam’s part) that he wouldn’t abuse this power to suddenly intervene in Sam’s personal affairs.

Looking back, Alan Bradley knows he has never broken a promise so thoroughly in his life.

For all his complaints whenever Alan turned up uninvited, however, Sam never so much as asked for the keys back. Alan understands he must have done something right to keep his privilege in spite of it all. And yet...

Heavens above, he missed out on far too much of Sam’s life and knows Sam suffered as a result of his negligence. Flynn’s son always carried wreckage in his heart and a slump on his shoulders, but his burden only seemed to increase each year after Kevin’s disappearance; the kid’s own godfather, by all accounts a distracted and ignorant fool, utterly failed at saving Sam from it.

Sam’s continued acceptance of him reassures that Alan, regardless, did enough.

Somedays, this knowledge is the only dam he has on his shame.

Typically, then, Alan has to break into Sam’s house- not by shattering windows or picking locks, but by opening the front door and creeping in with the full understanding that he’s technically unwelcome. Knocking on the door today is a refreshing change from the norm. More than he should, Alan savors the crack of his knuckles on the metal, striking out a three-part beat.

Sam opens up with one foot already planted on the threshold, barring Alan from going any further, coming any closer.

“Hello, Sam.”

He pauses; waits for the arid mistrust in Sam’s countenance to flicker out of existence. “It’s good to see you.”

The foot shifts.

Pulling the door open entirely, Sam moves to the side. “Awesome. The babysitter’s finally here!”

“Funny. I almost don’t think Tron would appreciate that comparison. And don’t sass me with your ‘finally;’ you know how bad traffic gets in the city.”

The barest twitch of a grin mars the straight composure of Sam’s face, skewing worry lines and scrunching up swollen eyelids until Alan can’t help but _notice_ the exhaustion that had been hidden in Sam’s casual frown. A dry chuckle huffs out of Sam’s throat like a bowling ball landed on his ribs; knocked the breath clear out of him. His chin drops down to his chest…

Sam’s smiles weigh on him as heavy as his sorrows.

“Betcha ten that Tron doesn’t know what a babysitter is,” Sam goads. He tries to smirk, then, but his face tightens into a cramped sort of grimace.

“What- ten cents?”

“Ten dollars, Alan.” The kid halfway rolls his eyes. _What are you, Alan- twelve years old?_

“I’m allowed a dad joke every once in a while.” He steps in, taking the door from Sam and shutting it behind him.

“Right.” Walking farther into the house, Sam navigates around a displaced stool and nearly trips over a plastic bucket- “Da- _Dang_ it, Q, what did I tell you about leaving your stuff on the floor?”

Limp as a carpet, Quorra has herself arranged over the back of a chair. “Not to.” It is, as far as Alan can tell, the verbal equivalent of a shrug, and Sam knows it. His forehead screws up in an absurdly familiar expression of stifled (parental) discontent.

Alan wonders why he didn’t offer to help out earlier, now that Sam as good as adopted a daughter.

Little sister?

He doesn’t know.

“Sure, Quorra,” Sam sighs, scrubbing at one cheekbone with the heel of his hand. “Alright, Alan- I need to take Quorra out to…”

“Buy clothes. You told me.” There was, as Sam described over the phone, ‘An Incident.’ On that note, Alan is fairly certain Quorra has on one of Sam’s shirts.

“Yeah, that’s- yeah. And Tron can’t…” Sam cuts himself off, fumbling aimlessly at the leather jacket draped over the kitchen counter. “Quorra, can you go wait outside with the motorcycle? I just have to talk to Alan for a sec.”

Her eyes narrow, and what with the quirk of her body on the chair, and the careful tuck of her arms beneath her chest, Alan receives the brief impression he’s looking at a cat. Abruptly, Quorra rolls off the side of her seat and strides out the door, breaking the resemblance.

Sam holds his breath until the door clicks shut behind her.

“Tron can’t be alone right now.” Alan blinks, and it takes him a moment to catch up with Sam’s rushed explanation. “He- well. He can’t…” Sam gestures vaguely at nothing; gives up on whatever it is he’s trying to convey. “He just can’t. So I need you to keep an eye on him, okay?”

“Where is he?”

Sam jerks his head toward the couch.

Alan turns toward it; hears Sam follow him into the living room with shuffling footsteps.

“He doesn’t usually sleep out in the open like this,” Sam muses, reaching down to ghost fingertips over a bare inch of skin, exposed between tall socks and sweatpants riding up one leg, on Tron’s calf. Alan finally makes out the form of the program, bundled up inside gratuitously loose clothing and obscured by couch cushions. “Scratch that, he usually doesn’t sleep  _period._ I’m blaming you for that, by the way- he takes after his creator.”

“Oh, I see. After all, you are such an exemplar of healthy sleeping habits.”

“Mhm.” Sam’s fingertips curl beneath the hem of Tron’s pants, tugging the fabric down over his sock. “He’ll hate me for it, but I’m going to let him sleep because he needs the rest. Just… when he wakes up, don’t make a big deal about it, arrite? He’s been through hell; doesn’t like to feel vulnerable.”

In rest, Tron’s face relaxes to an extent Alan has never witnessed before- the scars streaking up his neck and jaw don’t seem pulled tight and painful as they normally are, and his eyebrows wrinkle with a gentle, pensive frown.

“Should I try to be quiet?”

“Nah, he’ll wake up when he’s good and ready. Or-” At this, Sam mashes a palm into his face again, heaving a sigh. “Or if you’re in danger. He’ll wake up then, too. Just do whatever you want, Alan, but- uh… don’t stay too close to him. He might startle when he wakes up, and it could take him a moment to figure out where he’s at.”

“What happened to him?”

“You want a list?”

If Alan keeps staring at Sam, and at the shadows and strain creasing his face, he’ll probably order Sam to go to bed here and now, Quorra’s current shortage of clothes be darned. But he trusts Sam to know his own limits, so Alan focuses instead on his sleeping charge. “No. What I meant is- what happened to him today? Why don’t you want him to be left alone?”

Sam scuffs his toes against the foot of the couch.

“Sam." His concern comes out sterner than he wanted. "I need to know what I have to watch out for while I’m looking after him.”

“Today was a rough day for all of us. That's all. Tron’s tough, though; you only need to call me if he freaks out and doesn’t calm down after- say- five minutes. But he won’t hurt you or anything, Alan,” Sam blurts, “I swear you don’t have to worry abou-”

“I know he won’t.” In all honesty, Alan _doesn’t_ know, but he can’t imagine it happening, either. “He’s… very careful.” It’s one way to describe Tron’s attentiveness, Tron’s meticulous vigilance. He doesn’t miss a thing, and wouldn’t interpret a threat where one doesn’t exist- Alan spent years of his life programming pure awareness into Tron, which isn’t a welcome thought when he’s staring into the face of a traumatized soldier instead of the inhuman, unfeeling depths of a computer screen.

Sam echoes his thoughts precisely. “Careful is one way to put it.”

Circling around to the other side of the couch, Sam runs knuckles up Tron’s cheek and brushes hair out of the program’s eyes. The touch lingers for longer than necessary, but Sam doesn’t try to deny his reluctance to leave; merely cups Tron’s forehead again, grins ruefully, and bends down to kiss the other man’s hairline. For a moment, Sam looks up- and Alan nearly falls into an untrammeled ocean of worry churning in blue eyes; sucks in a half-drowned gasp before it can fully escape his lungs.

Tron, it seems, isn’t the only one in the room who tries too hard to hide his vulnerability.

“I promise I’ll take care of him, Sam.”

“You will.”

Sam stands and jogs to the door, snagging his jacket on the way, before Alan’s brain can comprehend the brusque compliment.

The door slams shut on Alan and on Alan’s perception of reality itself.

Eventually, he shakes the echo of banging metal out of his bones, realizing that he must’ve lost track of a minute or two wallowing in the abrupt and strangely hollow aftermath of Sam’s departure. Undisturbed by the noise, Tron snuffles against a cushion, hand flexing. Simultaneously, the faint lights trailing up the back of each finger flare; the white-blue stripes- circuits, according to Sam- dim again as the bend of Tron’s body softens.

“You really are tired, aren’t you? You and Sam both.” Alan has never seen his own face in sleep before, so the whole situation feels vaguely surreal, albeit in a comfortable manner. “Quorra, though-” He chuckles. “I get the sense she’s running the two of you ragged. Sam, of course, deserves a taste of his own medicine; he was _relentless_ as a child.”

He dawdles for another minute… the laundry machine, concealed in the back of the room, beckons with its familiarity. If he really wanted, Alan could probably compile a novel of all the times he took care of Sam’s laundry back when the kid was struggling. During his college days, Alan would wash up a couple of loads, just enough to get the kid through the next few days, while Sam stayed up all night with his homework. Other times, ‘doing Sam’s laundry’ was really more of a euphemism for ‘preserving Sam’s entire life;’ there were days when Sam couldn’t manage to drag himself off the couch, when his health and wellbeing began to crumble around him, and Alan had to step in and take care of every menial task that fell beyond Sam’s capabilities: cooking, cleaning, locking the dratted front door. It was always the same couch back then as it is now, and Alan reads some inexplicable significance into the fact that Tron, in place of Sam, is curled up on the furniture, grappling with his own mind.

It’s fitting, then, that Alan shucks off his overcoat, stuffs a laundry basket full of unfolded clothes from the dryer, and lugs it over by Tron. He tracks down the right remote control- all three of the remotes are lined up neatly in descending order of length; definitely not Sam’s doing- and switches on the television. Alan flicks through the channels until he finds a news station. It sounds suitably quiet and mindless.

Pants, three t-shirts, a ridiculous number of socks…

A ridiculous number of socks _without pairs_ , at that. Sighing, Alan picks himself up and returns to the machine, scooping still-damp clothes out of the washer and putting them to dry. Sam’s doing chores for three people now, and the hamper in the corner is overflowing; starting to noticeably smell. Seizing an armful of darker clothing, mostly pants, socks, and one musty jacket, he deposits the pile in the washing machine, pours in detergent, and starts another cleaning cycle.

The washing machine and dryer begin to agitate with a steady, fuzzy whir of noise.

Alan settles himself in an armchair with his basket and resumes folding.

And Notre Dame, on the television, burns.

The building, even as it deteriorates, seems massive, imposing at its base- as if it could never burn or be destroyed. But at its top, Notre Dame gives into the flame like sticks and paper until the inferno itself somehow appears more solid than a structure of wood and stone.

“That’s Notre Dame,” Alan commentates, sneaking a glance at Tron. “It’s a cathedral in France; very far away and very old.” Tron still sleeps, not much of an audience, but Alan feels as if the words fill the persistent silence and stillness lingering between them.

“I’ve been to Paris before, for work, but I never thought to visit Notre Dame. Stupid of me, in hindsight.” He pairs a couple of socks, considering. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take you and Quorra around the world; show you what the users’ history looks like. I think you’d find it more interesting than some of the other topics that are popular with users. Politics, for example.”

He huffs out a curse.

“From what Sam tells me, affairs in the Grid are difficult as it is; he won’t want you to have to worry about the mess in our world. Or to worry about him. At least one of us users has his priorities in order when it comes to you.”

A terse grunt chokes the air, and Alan turns to look at Tron. The program clutches at the couch as an ugly something twists across his forehead, plays sharp at the corners of his mouth. Reaching out helplessly, Alan realizes he doesn’t know how to help, or if he’s even welcome to try-

Tron _whines._

Alan’s hand hovers halfway between them, the gesture useless and unreciprocated, until the program smooths himself out again, burrowing deeper into the couch. He reads relief in the soft set of Tron’s face and lets his hand finally curl up like a withered plant and fall to his side.

_Do computers dream?_

The harsh laugh that follows the sardonic thought is entirely for Alan’s benefit. There isn’t anyone else in range to hear him, anyway.

This particular computer, asleep on Sam’s couch, is a living being- sentient, intelligent, able to feel, similar enough to human that Alan can’t classify Tron as anything less. If anything, he would call Tron something more than human; wants to justify the protective awe and reverence stirring in him as he watches Tron.

He created this. He broke this, too, because no one ( _Kevin_ ) ever informed Alan to treat his programs like people.

Automatically, he runs over what he remembers of Tron’s coding. Tron fights for the users, Tron protects the system, Tron can rip itself apart and take damage as no other firewall can...

The implications of this- that every program in the world could be a living, thinking, complex creature at the whims of human ignorance- staggers him.

“I’m sorry, Tron. I haven’t been a very kind creator, have I?”

According to Sam, Tron harbors an immeasurable loyalty toward ‘Alan_One.’ Alan confesses to himself he can’t understand why or how; he would theorize the sentiment was forced on Tron by his directive to fight for the users, but Sam has assured him otherwise- multiple times.

“Kevin never told me. He never told me anything. It’s a sorry excuse.” He throws a folded shirt to the ground with more force than strictly necessary.

“I remember when Kevin took you from ENCOM.”

Or- when Flynn took Tron from Alan.

”He’d been asking if he could use you for months, and I couldn’t understand why he would want to steal my program. Flynn wouldn’t explain himself, either- I’ll admit, the story would’ve seemed… insane.” Tipping his head back against the chair, Alan tries to decide whether it would’ve been safer for Tron if Alan had kept him. Kevin’s Grid fell to pieces, sure, but would it have been better or worse for Tron if Alan had downloaded him onto a floppy disk and left him in a cabinet?

“Either way,” he continues, not bothering to explain his train of thought to the sleeping program, “I would’ve abandoned you, either to Flynn or to storage- there’s not much difference. I just can’t understand why I was so careless; you’re the best program I ever created. When Sam told me that you were still running on Kevin’s death trap of a system, I was so thrilled. I was _proud.”_

Unimaginably proud, in fact. Alan can take no credit for Tron’s mental resilience. No amount of fancy coding would’ve done the program any good if Tron lacked the sheer willpower to utilize it...

Alan refocuses himself on the original topic.

“Kevin wanted to keep you so badly.But I didn’t let him, not until ENCOM decided to create uniform security. We thought it would be easier to keep track of the system that way. Kevin was picking up discarded programs left and right, nearly frantic. He’d always been an eccentric sort- I didn’t think much of it- but I guess he knew you were people, too. He was saving your _lives…_ And- Tron, you certainly never were a ‘uniform’ program.” An independent security unit would’ve been eaten alive by the destructive algorithm that tore through ENCOM’s system, homogenizing it. “So I gave you to Kevin. Figured I could come to see where he put you later. But I never got around to that, because you were just a program: 1s and 0s, nothing I thought I would really miss.”

With a leaden sigh- “I was wrong.”

Turning away from his likeness, Alan stares into the TV, eyes half-lidded and blurring over, not really watching the news.

“Kevin vanished. I had never asked him where he kept you, Tron, but I checked every inch of his house, tore apart his computer to find you. There was… nothing.”

A sensation as good as sense memory still constricts, thorny and red-hot and furious, around Alan’s lungs. Flynn had first taken himself away; had taken Tron, then kept taking and taking...

“You were gone, forever, because I hadn’t kept an eye on you. And to think you and Kevin both were stuck in an arcade basement the whole time? Life is one sick…” He cuts out the cuss word out of old habit, from when he used to watch over a young Samuel Flynn.

“I didn’t understand why it hurt so much to lose you. I didn't know you were a person that I _could_ miss, but it still felt like losing a part of me. Sam hasn’t told me what exactly happened to you on the Grid, but I understand I should’ve been there. I should’ve helped.” He scoffs. “In any case- I really let you down, eh?”

A faint, shuddering sigh meets Alan’s ears, and his heart stumbles in his chest.

He looks back at Tron.

“You’re awake.”

Tron’s mouth spasms, lips clenching together for an instant. The emotions in his eyes are thick, convoluted, unintelligible…

“How much did you hear?”

Tron doesn’t reply.

“Enough, I assume,” Alan infers. “That's fine, you deserve to know it. Tron, I’m so, _so_ sorry.”

The program’s eyes scrunch closed again, and he grits his teeth- as if he’s trying to cry, but (brow furrowed in unmistakable confusion) doesn’t know how. Alan tracks a fine tremor as it runs through the tense line of his body.

He’s pale, too, more so than usual.

The dryer erupts into a jingle- loud and grating- to announce the end of its cycle; Tron flinches at the noise. Alan watches the progress of that movement, as well: Tron’s face screws up, his body goes rigid, one hand scrabbling at nothing… then the program forces himself to relax, biting down painfully on one lip.

When Alan stands, he does so as slowly, as deliberately as possible. “I’ll be right back, Tron.” As best he can, he keeps one eye on the program as he unloads clean laundry into the basket.

Tron pushes himself upright on the couch, the shiver in his limbs visible from clear across the room. Contrary to all expectations, however, Tron doesn’t position himself to watch Alan in turn.

Alan hopes it means Tron doesn’t consider him a threat.

He wrestles with a sheet, stacking the billowing mass of it on top of the other clothing. It reeks of hot detergent, soapy and sweet, and warms Alan to his center where he first gathered it against his chest.

It’s perfect.

“Tron?” He sets the basket down by the couch and takes a closer look at the program. He almost looks like he’s going into shock, cheeks blanched and circuits far darker than normal. “Can I touch you for a moment?”

Tron manages a robotic nod.

Alan yanks the sheet out of the basket; drapes it over Tron and tucks the corners behind stiffened shoulders. A bath towel comes next, then a stretched-out t-shirt, until Tron’s body seems suitably covered by layers of laundry, his trembling smothered by the weight and warmth.

“Do you need me to call Sam for you?”

No.

“Okay. He’ll be back soon enough, but I’m here until then. You’re not alone.”

The sheet crinkles in the middle where Tron’s hands- hidden from Alan’s sight- grip it. Bringing a handful of the material to his face, Tron ducks down into the sheet and deflates with an unsteady, gasping exhale, shoulders caving in.

Alan arranges his mouth into an uncooperative caricature of a smile. “Are you doing alright?”

Another mute nod.

“I’m glad.”

He sits back down on his armchair and turns up the news; thinks better of it and tracks down the history channel. The show doesn’t look _anything_ like history, but it isn’t a political debate- Alan figures it’ll do.

Two loads of laundry later, Alan sets down the last basket of newly dried clothing and dumps it onto the floor, searching for any errant socks. The cocoon on the couch shifts and Tron slides out of it, wriggling into the laundry pile and curling around one of Sam’s shirts. By the time Alan locates the match to his sock, Tron’s eyes have closed, his body sinking into his makeshift nest.

Alan recognizes trust when he sees it, and even dares hope for forgiveness.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story was partially inspired by Cameron_McKell's works (credit given where credit is due). If y'all haven't done so yet, those stories are definitely worth reading.


End file.
